Not New Year’s Resolutions

I started in once again on everyone’s perennial New Year’s resolution–get organized.

The same thing happens every year and every year I forget the reason I failed to get organized.

I started going through old files and then–“Hey, look at this!”

So, today instead of New Year’s resolutions (do I hear you saying thank God?) we have an amalgam of things vaguely related to health and healthcare that made me go, “Hey, look at this.”

I have written before about epidemics and their effects on our families. On a recent visit my sister-in-law brought some things her mother had stored away. One was this page of clippings about the death of relatives in Sprague, Washington. Three members of one family died within three weeks during a flu outbreak in the winter of 1928 and 1929.

Mary McDonald McHugh was born in 1872, the daughter of Patrick McDonald, N’s great-grandfather. She was my mother-in law, Marian’s aunt. I think my mother-in-law may have been a favorite niece and Mary a favorite aunt. Among the things my mother-in-law kept was this dress, crocheted for her by her Aunt Mary. It is about 100 years old now and looks like new, a tribute to my mother-in-law’s ability to organize and preserve.

Mary was the first of the family to die on December 29, 1928. Her one year old granddaughter, Harriet died two weeks later, followed a week later by Harriet’s ten year old sister, Dorothy. Virtually every member of the family contracted pneumonia following the flu and many were hospitalized in Spokane, a 50-minute trip now, longer then.

When one year old Harriet died her sister, her mother, and her aunt were also patients in the hospital.

It is difficult to imagine losing your mother and two children while you are suffering through a potentially life threatening illness yourself.

The other item I found is from my side of the family and a happier keepsake. It is the contract my mother signed with the pediatrician when my brother was born in 1942. The doctor promises to visit once a week for six weeks and again at two months. In addition my mother will bring the baby to the doctor’s office once a month for checkups and vaccinations for the first year. My mother promises to pay Dr. Grossman $45.00 in installments. On the reverse side is a list the payments she made, 14 in all, mostly for three dollars initialed by the doctor.

When I cleaned out my mother’s house I found every utility bill she had paid since she moved into the house in 1954, every card she had ever received and a host of other things that made me crazy. On the other hand I also found this contract and my father’s elementary school photos and my early report cards. So, while I never quite seem to get organized, I am grateful that I have so much to organize.